“what are the symptoms of malaria,” he paused here and looked around the classroom, “we are all affected by malaria every day so give me some symptoms.”

The trainees began to list off the various symptoms that I’m currently recovering from. I’m a strange bird, I had a perverse sense of inclusion since I now have more than theoretical knowledge of a disease that is so common in Africa. Granted, given my current lethargy and malaise I’d be overjoyed to only have theory instead of practice…but I look for joy where I can find it – perverse or otherwise.

My mild case aside, the sobering reality is that malaria is responsible for 40-46% of ALL deaths in Liberia, 65,000+ children die each year here from it. It isn’t as sexy as AIDS or as headline grabbing as Ebola, it is simply the mundane killer…the car crash to HIV’s plane crash – far more frequent with an inverse amount of attention.

At any rate, this training is the launch-pad for my work in Liberia. I’ve been waiting for it to materialize for months. This training is responsible for training the trainers (TOT) of the county Basic Package of Health Services (BPHS) trainings that will train and refresh all the clinicians in Liberia with the most essential medical knowledge.

My work-plan has to be tweaked. Instead of helping to plan, rollout, and evaluate the county trainings I will instead evaluate this TOT, create an evaluation tool for participants (that can be used at the county level as well), and hopefully – meet with the Ministry of Health’s Monitoring and Evaluation. My departure time here is fast approaching…I’ll see how it goes.